This is a great resource during earnings season.
May 072012
Apr 282012
A columnist at Wired put together all sorts of data trying to rationalize the price that Facebook paid for Instagram. He concludes that because it is not as crazy as other acquisitions “there is no bubble here”.
The first commenter made some obvious points though:
If a tech bubble is really what you are trying to disprove you should expand your comparative set to include companies OUTSIDE of the the tech world. This is pretty solid Straw man Fallacy, with a healthy dollop of Hasty Generalisation.
How about some broader, more traditional tools for evaluating the value of a company rather than its user base:
Net Profit Margin?
Operating Margin?
Forward Cash Flows?
Projected Earnings?
Saying that this particular deal isn’t over valued as it compares to other deals which are possibly overvalued as well, is not an objectively valid argument.
Ben Bernanke is delivering a series of lectures to a group of undergrads at George Washington.
There is so much I disagree with Uncle Ben but so much I like about the guy. Doing this lecture series is a great way of communicating to people about one of the more misunderstood institutions in the US — my hat is tipped to Ben for coming up with this idea.
Binyamin Appelbaum, NY Times blogger, has been tweeting real-time from the lectures.
As everyone on this site knows by now I am a big fan of David Stockman and Jim Grant.
I find them to be bright, rigorous and independent — People who possess those qualities tend to be quite funny. Watch this interview for some great abstractions, alliterations and simple one liners :
Here are some of my favorites:
“the office of unintended consequences”, “that ain’t value the way the ancients deemed it” and “these are the prices the Fed wants but are they the right prices?”
“How about capitalism Ben Bernanke?”
Then he takes on the latest canard that Uncle Warren has perpetrated. Uncle Warren in his recent annual report claimed that “productive” assets outperform “unproductive assets”, irregardless of supply & demand and subsequent pricing of the different assets.
Grant shows in one line graph that this is not necessarily the case in ages of massive money printing and expensive stocks, by showing the fact that sugar just sitting in a warehouse has outperformed Coca Cola [NYSE: KO] over the last 16 years.
Feb 162012
Nov 132011
As the European side of this debt crisis moves from Greece to Italy and now France I enjoyed this NYTimes commenter’s mixed metaphor assessment of the situation:
The daily Euro Zone soap :
PANIC ! sky’s falling, economic collapse imminent!
EUPHORIA ! deck chairs re-arranged for nth time, blue skies ahead !
Rinse, Repeat,
Rinse, Repeat,
Rinse, Repeat,
Rinse, Repeat,
Rinse, Repeat,
Rinse, Repeat,
Rinse, Repeat,
Rinse, Repeat,
Rinse, Repeat,
Rinse, Repeat,
…
It’s a rare person that can make you smile while saying something insightful about economics and finance. It’s even rarer that someone can do that in the space given by Facebook for status updates.
Bill Gross does it here:
Here is one of his better ones:
“Gross: Only 1 balance sheet can save Italy, but ECB wears lederhosen, and refuses to staunch destructive debt deflation. Risk off investors!”
Inflation anyone?
Altenergystocks does a great job summarizing an IPO into a quick, useful brief. I don’t know anything about the compay, Mascoma, that they summarize but I think this is a good exercise to do for every S-1.
http://www.altenergystocks.com/archives/2011/09/mascomas_ipo_the_10minute_version.html
Sep 022011
One of the best lines in film history:
Comments